F2 Laser Microfabrication for Photonics and Biophotonics

The F2 laser defines the short-wavelength forefront of commercial laser systems. As such, the 157-nm lasing wavelength is highly attractive for defining features to - 100 nm in size during laser processing, and extensions to sub100 nm processing were under development for the next generation semiconductor lithography exposure tool. The F2 laser further provides a high photon energy of 7.9 eV that drives strong interactions with nearly all materials, opening a broad base of laser applications to wideband-gap materials such as transparent glasses like fused silica or robust polymers like Teflon. The F2-laser light can smoothly microsculpt optical surfaces with precise - 10nm depth control without generating the microcracks normally produced by longer-wavelength lasers . The strong interactions can be further tailored to more gentle internal modification of glasses to imprint buried refractive index structures like volume gratings or optical waveguides. Such processes merit a broad range of new applications such as custom fabrication of micro-optic components, diffractive optical elements, microfluidic channels for laboratory on a chip (LOAC), planar or bulk 3-D optical circuits, and repair and phase trimming of optical functions. Microfabrication also extends to weakly absorbing inorganics or polymers like polyethylene, PMMA, and PTFE for potential biomedical, electronic, and MEMs applications, and to sapphire and semiconductor materials.